Page 36 of Ward D
How long was Ramona standing outside the door to room 905? How much did she hear of our conversation? I study Ramona’s face, but it’s blank. She doesn’t seem like she had heard any part of what Jade had been accusing me of. She blinks when she notices me standing in the middle of the room.
“Amy.” Ramona scratches her chin. “Weren’t you seeing Schoenfeld in 906?”
Jade is smirking at me. “I decided to see a second patient,” I mumble. “May as well. I’ve got the whole night.”
“Good for you,” Ramona says. “Most of the students who rotate through here just want to do the bare minimum. They all think of psych as the easy rotation.”
“No,” I say. “I definitely don’t think it’s easy.”
20
Ihave no appetite at all.
I return to the staff lounge after talking to Jade, and my cheese sandwich is waiting for me. But it’s utterly unappetizing. I know American cheese never expires, and it will probably be safe to eat long after I have graduated from medical school, gone through residency, and retired and moved to Florida, but I still don’t want it. I don’t even want to look at it. I stuff it back into the paper bag and toss it in the trash.
I dig out my phone and try once again to get some service on it. For a split second, I have a bar. But then it vanishes.
I suppose I could call Gabby from one of the landlines. Of course, it’s getting very late. And I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually called her. In our entire two years of being roommates and best friends, I’m not sure we’ve ever spoken on the phone. We’ve only exchanged text messages. Besides, if she sees a call coming from the hospital, she’ll almost certainly send it to voicemail.
I almost wish Cameron were here. I don’t know where he went. His dinner is missing from the refrigerator, so he obviously came back here to eat it after we interviewed Spider-Dan, but I haven’t seen him since. He’s probably interviewing another patient. I know he wants to impress Dr. Beck, because he wants to impress everyone.
After I toss my dinner in the trash, I decide to make good on my statement to Ramona about seeing a second patient. After all, I’ve got plenty of time. So I head back to the nurses’ station to find another chart.
I notice this time the chart labeled SAWYER has disappeared. It’s a shame, because I was very curious to see exactly what sent him here. And it would be comforting to look through it and reassure myself that he’s not some sort of murderer. Of course, I can’t guarantee anything in the chart would be comforting. So maybe it’s better that I’m not looking.
Jade’s chart is still up on the rack. She thinks I would look at it without her permission, but I’m going to show her that I’m better than that. I’m not looking at that chart. Whatever sent Jade to the psych ward, that’s her business. Instead, I reach for the chart for room 912.
Mary Cummings.
After all the excitement tonight, it will be a nice change of pace to interview a sweet old woman sitting in a chair knitting a scarf. There isn’t much scary about Mary.
I flip through Mary’s chart to find out exactly what brought her to Ward D. I learn that Mary is seventy-eight years old, and one day while she was out in her backyard, she heard the sound of a child in the house next door swinging back and forth on the swing set. She found the sound of this so grating, she marched over to the house, threw the child off the swing, and refused to let anyone near the swing set again. Until Mary herself had to be forcibly removed by the police.
In Mary’s defense, swings can bereallyannoying. Like, when they squeak a lot. I can’t entirely blame her.
I have to go past Seclusion One in order to get to Mary’s room. Thankfully, no pounding noises are coming from within the room. The man inside the room has gone quiet, at least for now. I stand there a moment, looking at the metal door, which dents outward in the center, just like it would if somebody were throwing himself against it. The keypad next to the door glows green.
“Let… out…”
The sound is like a hiss from within the room. I can barely make out the words. It sounds like somebody talking with a mouthful of marbles in his mouth.
“Let… me… out…”
It’s obvious what Damon Sawyer wants. I know the code for the door, and if I wanted, I could type it in.
I could let him free.
“Let… me… out…” A long pause. “Please…”
I shake my head and step back from the door. Not a chance. I might not know what Sawyer did to land him in that room, but I know what he’ll do if he ever gets out.
I hurry down the hallway to room 912—Mary Cummings’s room. As I get closer, I hear that familiar noise once again.Click click click.She is still hard at work on her scarf, even though it’s getting quite late. She smiles up at me, and I notice how yellow her teeth are, and that three of them are rotting in the front.
I look down at the knitting needles she’s working with. I don’t know exactly what children’s safety needles look like, but these look like legit knitting needles, made from steel. They could easily be used to take out someone’s eye.
“Well, hello, dear.” She blinks her watery brown eyes. They look like they have a film covering them. “Nicole, isn’t it?”
I recall the name Nicole in one of the charts on the rack. Nicole must be a patient here that Mary is familiar with. I’m not thrilled about the fact that she has mistaken me for one of the patients.
